Drill: Four corners passing and support

Purpose

A progressive drill to improve the skills and movement required to keep possession, pass, move, support the ball and rotate players positions

	Drill area

Set Up

Set up a 40 x 40 meter area. Cone off the four corners of the area so that they are 10 x 10 meters in size. Size of area can be adjusted to suit age, ability and numbers.
Organise 3 teams of four players. Place a player of one team in each of the four corners. In the first and second drill, they are conditioned to stay in these four corners.
Play the other two teams, 4 v 4 in the middle area. In the first and second drill, they are conditioned NOT to enter the four corners.
The game is a possession game, whatever team has possession, they can use any of the four spare players in the corners, making an 8 v 4 situation. The players in the four corners must pass back to the team who passed to them.
Balls
Bibs
Cones

Note: There are two progressions to this drill. When the drill has loaded you will see two buttons on the bottom right of the drill player called #1 and #2. Click on these to see the progressions.

Structure

This is a possession game. The first game is conditioned so that the team in possession can use ANY of the spare players in the four corners, effectively creating a 8 v 4 game. The players in the four corners are conditioned to pass back to the team that passed the ball to them. In this first game they can only pass to the middle players. Once a player in the corner has passed the ball back to the team in possession, they can't pass back to that corner until the ball has been passed to one of the other three corner players. If possession is lost, the other team keep the ball. Winning team is the first to successfully complete a set number of passes. i.e 8 passes to score a point. Rotate corner players with other players regularly.

Coaching Tips

Pass and move
Use the spare players in the corners
Accurate, simple passing
Movement to support the ball
Good angle and distance of support
Accurate timed passing
Turn out of tight areas
Good communication

Progressions

Condition players to two touch.
Increase the number of passes required to score a goal.
Four corners progression # 1. Same set up, but this time the four corner players can switch the ball to any of the other four corner players. This will require the middle players to provide a different kind of support when the ball is switched. The four corner players can also pass to the middle players, it is their choice.
Four corners progression # 2. For this drill, there are two teams of 6 players. Play 4 v 4 in the middle and the other two players are placed in the diagonally opposite corner grids. This time the blue team can only pass to a blue player who is in one of the corners. Same for the red team. Once a blue player has passed, or run the ball into a blue corner, the middle player who has passed into the corner, must take the place of the corner player. The corner player must follow their pass out of the corner and become a middle player. This encourages rotational play.

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